Lin Gui floated high above Shadowmoon City.
Astride his staff, his gaze swept across the purple ruins below.
He was searching for any trace of those hunters.
Were they even in Shadowmoon City?
He couldn't be sure.
If they weren't here, he would immediately set off for the next destination.
But if they were...
he wouldn't mind venting some frustration on behalf of the angry residents of Whitestone City.
Fortunately, he soon discovered their trail.
Near a half-collapsed elven temple on the western side of Shadowmoon City, several bonfires crackled in an open clearing, with figures flickering in the firelight.
Lin Gui lowered his altitude, melting into the shadows of the nearby structures.
He quietly activated the Eyes of the Netherworld.
His vision instantly became clear.
The head count was wrong; there weren't five of them.
There were ten.
In addition to the five scarred hunters, there were five other unsavory-looking characters.
The original five hunters sat huddled around a campfire, gnawing on dry rations.
The other five...
were guardedly watching over several large iron cages wrapped tightly in black cloth.
The cages were tall and heavy.
Faint clinking sounds echoed from beneath the black fabric.
Along with... suppressed whimpering.
Though the hunters looked exhausted, they couldn't conceal their excitement.
The scar-faced assassin was speaking in low tones with an unfamiliar face.
The stranger wore a heavy fur coat with a longsword hanging from his waist.
His aura... was also that of a High-tier Transcendent.
Lin Gui's eyes darkened slightly.
The sudden addition of these people made things significantly more difficult.
In a corner near them, Lin Gui spotted three elderly men.
They weren't the two dying men from Whitestone City.
These were new faces.
Scrawny and ancient, their ankles bound with hemp ropes, they huddled in the snow, shivering.
They had likely been 'recruited' from another outpost as guides by the other group of hunters.
Beside these elderly men, three iron cages covered in black cloth stood quietly.
Lin Gui's gaze fell upon those cages.
The bars of the cages were as thick as a child's arm, pitch-black, and etched with intricate, dark-red runes.
Those were binding arrays specifically designed to imprison slaves.
Seeing this, Lin Gui was certain.
This group was indeed slave hunters.
Back in Whitestone City, seeing their attire and hearing their contemptuous remarks about bounty hunters...
Lin Gui had already harbored suspicions.
Seeing the iron cages now came as no surprise.
Only...
he frowned.
Why did they choose to go through the Wall of Sighs?
This route was extremely risky, crawling with spectral demons and shrouded in bizarre mist.
It was far less 'safe' than conventional wilderness routes.
What did they hope to gain by hunting slaves along this path?
Just then, the glass bead in his pocket suddenly vibrated violently.
Clotina's soul form drifted out without warning.
She stared intently at the iron cages below.
Her gaze locked onto one of them.
From a gap in the black cloth, a strand of long black hair peeked out, along with a long, pointed ear.
“That's...”
Clotina's voice trembled.
“An elf of the Night Clan... those beasts!”
Her eyes burned with rage, her soul form trembling slightly.
However, when she peered closer through the gap and clearly saw the face of the elf inside, Clotina froze.
Lin Gui expected her to charge forward like the elves at Deepwood Outpost.
But the expected outburst did not happen.
Instead, he only saw a look of astonishment, confusion, and even a hint of complexity wash over Clotina's face.
Behind him, Eve's voice quietly sounded:
“The difficulty just doubled.”
“According to my perception, there are two High-tier Transcendents, five Mid-tier Transcendents, and three Low-tier Transcendents down there.”
Lin Gui's gaze swept over the scene below.
“More than doubled,” he said softly.
“The new arrivals... there's a priest, a mage, and a scout.”
“They have a fully balanced team.”
“They're going to be even more troublesome than Caesar's team during the Saintess assassination attempt.”
Eve turned her head to look at him:
“Do you need my help?”
“No, I can handle this alone.”
Taking a glance, Lin Gui's strength was at the High-tier High Rank.
Meanwhile, looking at the hunters below, every single one of them was a Transcendent.
A High-tier High Rank facing ten Transcendents, yet claiming he could handle it alone.
It sounded like a reckless fool with no self-awareness, an overconfident weakling.
But knowing Lin Gui, Eve actually found it perfectly natural.
Eve asked curiously, “So, what do you plan to do?”
Lin Gui's gaze drifted toward the three bound elderly men in the corner.
Eve understood instantly.
“You want to kill the guides while they're traveling through the mist?”
“Leaving them completely exposed inside the Wall of Sighs...”
“to be torn to pieces by the invisible spectral demons?”
Lin Gui turned to look at her, speechless:
“Even if they are dying, we can't just take their lives at will, Saintess.”
“Besides, there are elves in those cages.”
“If we do it your way, they'll end up buried alongside them.”
“That's not worth it, Saintess.”
Hearing his sarcasm, Eve's smile widened.
“Then, my merciful Holy Saint, what do you plan to do?”
Am I being insulted? Lin Gui thought to himself, exasperated.
Having 'merciful' associated with him was no different from being called a bleeding heart.
Shaking off his annoyance, Lin Gui looked back at the elves in the cages below.
If those elves weren't there...
he indeed would have planned to target the guides while the hunters were crossing.
Not to kill them, but to steal them away.
Letting these hunters experience the true terror of the Wall of Sighs.
Stealing the dying men wouldn't be difficult.
The hunters below kept very little guard over the dying men whose lives held their own survival in the balance.
After all, in this godforsaken place, there probably wasn't another living soul besides them.
And as for a few dying old men, none of these high-and-mighty Transcendent lords would bother to look after them.
Furthermore, their group was exceptionally powerful now.
Strong enough to completely wipe out some smaller city-states.
For example, back in New Covenant City, Lin Gui's strength was only at the Low-tier High Rank.
Even that rank was enough to make a name for oneself in New Covenant City.
Thus, they were confident that no one would dare provoke them.
This made it all the easier for Lin Gui to make a move on these overlooked, yet critically vital, old men.
It would be easy for Lin Gui to steal the guides.
But those iron cages containing the elves...
were a major problem.
They were too large and would cause too much commotion.
The moment they were moved, it would be noticed immediately.
Lin Gui pondered for a moment, then quietly drifted closer astride his staff.
He stopped next to the nearest iron cage, using the shadow of a building as cover to peer inside.
Three elves were imprisoned inside the cage.
All of them were adult males with black hair and black eyes.
Typical features of Night Elves.
They huddled at the bottom of the cage, their clothes so tattered they barely covered their bodies.
Their exposed skin was crisscrossed with both fresh and old wounds.
Whip lashes, burns, and marks that looked like claw tears.
Their hair was dry as dead grass, clinging to their gaunt cheeks.
One of them had unnaturally twisted finger joints.
They had clearly been broken.
Another had a deep, bone-deep old wound on his leg that had only been crudely bandaged and had long since festered.
All three wore heavy shackles on their ankles and wrists, the edges worn into deep-red scabs.
What caught Lin Gui's attention most,
was the faint magic brand on the back of their necks and shoulder blades.
Those were restrictions specifically designed to suppress the natural flow of elven magic.
Cutting off their last possible means of resistance.
Their eyes were completely hollow.
There was no anger, no fear.
Only a deathly, numb silence.
Occasionally, one of them would twitch unconsciously.
A wheezing sound rasped from his throat, like a leaking bellows.
Lin Gui watched silently, not at all surprised that there wasn't a single female elf inside.
In the slave market, handsome male elves were often far more expensive than females.
He hadn't known this at first.
Until Elvia had mentioned it with a mocking tone during a casual chat:
“My eldest sister, Princess Diana.”
“She spent a billion gold coins just to buy a male elf.”
Although the status of women was generally low among the Akara nobility...
there were always a few who possessed staggering influence and wealth.
And their extravagance when it came to 'pleasure'...
was legendary.
Rate on N.U.
